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Don’t You Ever Doubt?

Yes! Of course! There’s no question! You forgot what you are reading, didn’t you? Well, I tend to doubt more than the average bear (if bears can comprehend such silly things). Sometimes I get asked by members of the Church, ‘Eric, how come you seem to have such faith and confidence in the Gospel? Don’t you ever doubt?’ To them, I answer, as a did above, with a resounding ‘yes’. I do doubt. But doubt is the charcoal that fuels the flames of my faith.

But what is doubt? And is it bad? For some, doubt means lack of belief of lack of conviction. But I want to define doubt as something else. Doubt, as I see is, is not understanding everything very clearly and being uncertain of getting the correct outcome.

For instance, where I work, I create furniture for hours at a time. Every now and then, I will get a new product and would have to construct this item using the directions. As I am building this piece of furniture, I begin to doubt the accuracy of the material I am reading. I sometimes think to myself ‘Is this really going to create the desired product?’ Sometimes, the directions we are given seem rather odd and seem as if they will not produce the desired result. But, with faith and hope in the instruction manual we are given, we will see that the desired outcome can come about.

So, why all the confidence and faith? When I first started creating furniture, I was hesitant to follow the directions in full. But I did so anyways not knowing and not sure of the outcome. After some time and experience that has been gained building furniture and learning how to follow the directions, I gained an extreme amount of faith and confidence in the manuals (yes, we are still talking about furniture and manuals). My confidence grew in these manuals and soon enough I was teaching others how to build furniture and I was better able to share some of that same confidence that I had gained. In the end, my apprentices were able to build beautiful pieces of furniture and went on to teach others.

In a similar manner, we can gain faith because of doubt by following the teachings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that with faith, diligence and patience, we can overcome our doubts and build in confidence of love for others in sharing the Gospel and in teachings others. Trust in God and follow Him. You will know and understand the path that He has laid before us “line upon line, precept upon precept” (D&C 98:12).

One thought on “Don’t You Ever Doubt?”

I like this. It seems you are saying that you never doubt God himself, but on occasion have some misgivings about the methods He uses, or simply the fact that He chooses to use you. But I think the best part of this post is the assurance that faith can overcome doubt. I believe that even the prophets doubted at times on their journey’s until they had grown sufficiently in faith.